God under Howard: The rise of the religious right in Australia

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God under Howard: The rise of the religious right in
Australia
By Marion Maddox
Allen & Unwin, $29.95

Australia journalists are, in general, notoriously ignorant
about religion. Academic surveys regularly reveal that they are far
less likely to attend church, for instance, than their neighbours.
So it is not surprising that they tend to dismiss religion as at
best peripheral and at worst, trivial.

Marion Maddox's powerful analysis of the insidious growth of the
religious Right in Australian politics demonstrates the danger of
this ignorance. For all the acres of newsprint devoted to political
commentary in this country, the influence of fundamentalist
varieties of Christianity within the Howard Government over a
period of years now has gone virtually unreported.

The election of a Family First Party senator last year seemed to
many commentators to herald the birth of a new phenomenon, given
the party's links to the conservative Pentecostal Assemblies of
God. But as Maddox shows in this carefully researched and cogently
argued study, the religious Right did not need a minor party to
give it a (small) voice in Parliament. It has been steadily gaining
influence at the heart of the Howard Government for years. And its
influence is certainly neither peripheral nor trivial. Rather, it
comes perilously close to endangering many of the personal freedoms
most Australians take for granted. Ironically, under its influence,
the Government has routinely ignored the mainstream churches'
concerns, especially in relation to refugees, asylum seekers and
the war in Iraq.

God Under Howard is a troubling expose of the
unheralded, unholy marriage between religious fundamentalism and
political expediency that has taken place in Canberra, a marriage
that has justified and accelerated increased government intrusion
in the lives of individuals while accelerating the pace of economic
deregulation.

Maddox identifies the Government's reinforcement of 1950s-style
"family values" as a policy clearly acceptable to some conventional
church leaders and congregations, as well as to the Pentecostal
megachurches. At the same time, however, and less overtly,
"Howardism" has adopted the "prosperity gospel" preached by
American religious Right protagonists, who ally wealth creation
with God's favour, she claims. This is in direct opposition to
mainstream church teaching, but legitimises the capitalist "Market
God", whose acolytes worship competition as the supreme virtue at
every level in the economic arena.

These developments are not all sheeted home solely to John
Howard, though the title of the book and its clever cover graphic
portraying John and Janette Howard as dour Amish-style Americans
could easily give that impression. Maddox's detailed introductory
exploration of Howard's Methodist church-going childhood could also
be rather misleading in this respect.

As the book unfolds, however, it becomes clear that Howard's
Sunday school days seem to have had as little long-term influence
on his life as they did on most of his contemporaries. As Maddox
demonstrates, the Methodism of his youth hardly conformed to the
conservative stereotype and had little in common with the religious
Right.

The Methodist Church was consistently radical at the time,
promoting Aboriginal rights, an end to the White Australia policy
and a generous gospel of social inclusion and care for the
marginalised. Significantly, Howard's family is portrayed as
resistant to these views, despite their regular church
attendance.

The American "apple pie and motherhood" publication, the
Saturday Evening Post, with its wholesome depictions of impossibly
perfect family life, seems to have been more significant than any
Methodist publication, and even perhaps the Bible, in the Howard
home.

By contrast with American political leaders, as Maddox points
out, Howard's personal religious identification is low key. He
admits to little more than occasional church-going, these days as
an Anglican. That, she suggests, fits well with a sophisticated
political strategy in tune with secular Australia's distrust of
overt religiosity. The political message, even with its appeal to
"family values" and clever manipulation of wedge issues such as gay
marriage, is carefully couched in terms acceptable to secular
Australia. The religious motif is there, however, for those attuned
to its markers.

The undeniable resurgence of right-wing thought internationally
has produced an environment that not only suits Howard's
personality, but also his political ambitions, she argues.

If Maddox's case is accepted - and the detail of her research
suggests it is a compelling case - the overall impression is that
religious values are not at the heart of current political
strategies at all. Rather, a deep and dark cynicism is the central
force, manipulating the religious Right as a powerful and
convenient tool to persuade an insecure electorate.

It is a dangerous game, and one Australians need to be alerted
to. Maddox's book deserves the widest readership - particularly
among political commentators.